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RE: MWVI: Middle East -- Scenario List
Here is the description of the Golan 1973 scenario, blatantly copied from Wikipedia. :whis:
[Northern Galilee Israel, Golan Heights, SW Syria]:[H2H]:[HIS]:[BB] This scenario depicts the Yom Kippur War on the Golan Heights from October 6. until dusk October 12. 1973. For the Day / Night scheme see the attached documentation. In the Golan Heights, the Syrians attacked two Israeli brigades and eleven artillery batteries with five divisions and 188 batteries. They began their attack with an airstrike by about 100 aircraft, followed by a 50-minute artillery barrage. The forward brigades of three divisions then penetrated the cease-fire lines and bypassed United Nations observer posts, followed by the main assault force, which was covered by mobile anti-aircraft batteries and bulldozers to penetrate anti-tank ditches, along with mine-clearance vehicles. At the onset of the battle, the Israeli brigades of some 3,000 troops, 180 tanks and 60 artillery pieces faced off against three infantry divisions with large armour components comprising 28,000 Syrian troops, 800 tanks and 600 artillery pieces. In addition, the Syrians deployed two armoured divisions from the second day onwards. Every Israeli tank deployed on the Golan Heights was engaged during the initial attacks. Syrian dropped by helicopter also took the most important Israeli stronghold at Jabal al Shaikh (Mount Hermon) , which had a variety of surveillance equipment. An Israeli force attempting to counterattack was ambushed and repulsed by the Syrians.
The Golan Heights front was given priority by the Israeli High Command. The fighting in the Sinai was sufficiently far away that Israeli population centers were not immediately threatened. The Golan however, was in close proximity to Israeli population centers and its fall would pose a serious threat to major Israeli cities such as Tiberias, Safed, Haifa and Netanya. Reservists were directed to the Golan as quickly as possible. They were assigned to tanks and sent to the front as soon as they arrived at army depots, without waiting for the crews they trained with to arrive, machine guns to be installed on the tanks, or taking the time to calibrate the tank guns (a time-consuming process known as bore-sighting). The Syrians had expected it to take at least 24 hours for Israeli reserves to reach the front lines; in fact, reserve units began reaching the battle lines only fifteen hours after the war began.
As the Egyptians had in the Sinai, the Syrians took care to stay under cover of their SAM batteries. Also as in the Sinai, the Syrians made use of Soviet anti-tank weapons (which, because of the uneven terrain, were not as effective as in the flat Sinai desert).
By the end of the first day, the Syrians had achieved moderate success. The Israelis put up fierce resistance, as tanks and infantry fought desperately to buy time. Having practiced on the Golan Heights numerous times, Israeli gunners made highly effective use of mobile artillery. Syrian anti-aircraft batteries shot down 40 Israeli planes, but Israeli pilots soon adopted a different tactic of flying in low over Jordan and diving in over the Golan heights, catching the Syrians in the flank and avoiding many of their batteries. The Israeli pilots dropped both conventional explosives and napalm bombs, devastating Syrian armored columns. Within six hours of the initial assault, however, the first Israeli line of defense was overrun by sheer weight of numbers. The Israelis continued to resist throughout the day. The Syrians had suffered very heavy losses but had managed to inflict significant losses on the small Israeli defending force.
A Syrian tank brigade passing through the Rafid Gap turned northwest up a little-used route known as the Tapline Road, which cut diagonally across the Golan. This roadway would prove one of the main strategic hinges of the battle. It led straight from the main Syrian breakthrough points to Nafah, which was not only the location of Israeli divisional headquarters but the most important crossroads on the Heights.
During the night, Israeli forces successfully held back numerically superior Syrian forces. The Syrians were equipped with night-vision goggles, and struck with precision. The Israelis had to allow the Syrians to advance to ranges close enough for night fighting, and then open fire. Whenever Syrian tanks penetrated the Israeli lines, Israeli gunners would immediately rotate their turrets and destroy them before turning their attention back to the oncoming forces. The Syrians seized some of the high ground during the night but were soon pushed off by an Israeli counterattack. Captain Zvika Greengold, who had just arrived unattached to any unit, helped fight them off, sometimes with his single tank, until help arrived.
For the next 20 hours, Zvika Force, as he came to be known on the radio net, fought running battles with Syrian tanks—sometimes alone, sometimes as part of a larger unit, changing tanks half a dozen times as they were knocked out. He was wounded and burned but stayed in action and repeatedly showed up at critical moments from an unexpected direction to change the course of a skirmish.[144]
For his actions, Greengold received Israel's highest decoration, the Medal of Valor. Commander Avigdor Kahalani lined up his tanks and had them fire blindly at advancing enemy forces.
On the second day of fighting, the Israeli Air Force attempted to take out the Syrian anti-aircraft batteries. Codenamed Operation Doogman 5, the attempt was a costly failure. Six Israeli aircraft were shot down, killing two pilots, with another nine captured. The Israelis only managed to take out one Syrian missile battery.
During over four days of fighting, the Israeli 7th Armoured Brigade in the north (commanded by Avigdor Ben-Gal) managed to hold the rocky hill line defending the northern flank of their headquarters in Nafah. They inflicted severe losses on the Syrians, but by the afternoon of October 9, only six of their tanks remained in action. Just as it was starting to be pushed back, it was bolstered by a small force of individual tanks arrived from Israel, and held firm. To the south, the Barak Armored Brigade was bereft of any natural defenses. The Syrians were initially slowed down by a minefield and the Barak Brigade's gunners inflicted severe losses on the Syrians with accurate cannon fire. Undeterred by their losses, the Syrians continued pushing and the Barak Brigade began to take heavy casualties. The Israelis continued to fight desperately, hoping to buy time for reserve forces to reach the front lines. In several instances, some Israeli tank crews sacrificed themselves rather than voluntarily give ground. At night, the Syrians made deadly use of infrared technology, while the Israelis responded by using illumination rounds and xenon light projectors on their tanks and carried out a series of small blocking actions. Israeli Brigade Commander Colonel Shoham was killed on the second day, along with his second-in-command and operations officer, as the Syrians desperately tried to advance towards the Sea of Galilee and Nafah. At this point, the Barak Brigade stopped functioning as a cohesive force although the surviving tanks and crewmen continued fighting independently. Syrian Brigadier General Omar Abrash was killed when his command tank took a direct hit. The Syrians were close to reaching the Israeli defenders at Nafah, yet stopped the advance on Nafah's fences at 1700; the pause lasted all night, allowing Israeli forces to form a defensive line.[143] It is surmised that the Syrians had calculated estimated advances, and the commanders in the field did not want to diverge from the plan.
Israeli advance
The tide in the Golan began to turn as the arriving Israeli reserve forces were able to contain and, beginning on October 8, push back the Syrian offensive. The tiny Golan Heights were too small to act as an effective territorial buffer, unlike the Sinai Peninsula in the south, but it proved to be a strategic geographical stronghold and was a crucial key in preventing the Syrian army from bombarding the cities below. After taking heavy casualties, the Israelis began relying mostly on mobile artillery to dislodge the Syrians, who were by now retreating back to the pre-war ceasefire lines. By October 10, the last Syrian unit in the Central sector had been pushed back across the Purple Line (the pre-war ceasefire line). After four days of intense and incessant combat, the outnumbered Israelis succeeded in ejecting the Syrians from the entire Golan.
[ALL: N VV: N AF]
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